Children Will Listen Pt 3

"I never understand when people say they're too full to eat any more. I mean, sometimes I'll say 'oh, I could not eat another bite', but only because it's considered socially acceptable."

- Camille Jasperson

She's my soulmate.

May Your Days Be Merry and Bright

It's that time of year again!
The time when teachers realize they haven't taught you all that much and pile on the homework; when students lose all motivation to accomplish anything and spend their evenings playing Jerkface for hours on end. That's right, it's the end of the semester!

I jest (kind of). We all know what time of year it really is. And, oh boy, am I excited about it!

First off, thank you, parents, for the Christmas Tree and decorations. Jessica made a construction paper star for the top and it really completes the spirit of our apartment. This past Wednesday night, Jessica, Allisyn, and I made loads of paper snowflakes and chains to put around our apartment. We even have a countdown of Christ-related scriptures to the end of the semester. I find great joy every time I enter our home.
The only music we listen to these days are the Christmas albums of Justin Bieber and Michael Buble. I'm loving it. And I highly recommend Justin Bieber's version of Drummer Boy. Instant classic. Like Rebecca Black's Friday.
Last night, I went with three of my roommates to the BYU-Idaho Christmas Concert featuring the Symphony Orchestra, Men's and Women's Choirs, an a capella group called Vocal Union, and special guest Brian Stokes Mitchell concert (I'd never heard of him, but apparently he's a big deal). They were all so fantastic. Favourite song: Sleigh Ride arranged and sung by Brian Stokes Mitchell with both choirs and Vocal Union, accompanied by the full orchestra. (Yes, Mom, I did think of you.)
Tonight was the First Presidency Christmas Devotional! I'm sorry to say that I think this was only the second year that I've attended it. And the first that I haven't slept through it. But it was great!

And I'll be home in less than two weeks!
Merry Christmas!

But Since I Left Me Cannon At Home, I'll Simply Have to Say, Thank You Very, Very, Very Much

Happy Thanksgiving!
And I really am feeling grateful.

Have I told you how much I love visiting my Aunt Loreen in Gunnison? Cause I do. I really, really do.

When I was in grade three, I went with Loreen to her grade five class and we told them I was a new accelerated student. She gave me the answers to difficult multiplication problems and obscure geography questions in order to pull off the hoax. Then, again in grade six we pretended I was a new student. So I guess it's become a little bit of a tradition for us now.
On Wednesday morning, I went with Loreen to her fifth grade classroom, this time pretending to be a junior at Utah State studying Child Psychology, conducting a study within her classroom. I sat in the room with a list of all the students' names, observing their behaviour and taking notes. I tried to give one kid a complex by watching him and writing conspicuously as he walked to the kleenex box, blew his nose, and walked back to his seat. At one point, I even took half of the kids out in the hall to interview them individually - I tried to pick the ones that seemed most fearful of my presence. Right before lunch, we let them all in on the ruse and they feigned some anger, but really were pleased and excited to be a part of the practical joke. It was good fun. Loreen and I definitely get a kick out of it.

The next morning, we took an extensive walk around the farm. I'd never seen so much of their land before; I didn't even realize they had so much. And they have tons of old junk piles and even hundred-year-old houses on their property! It made for the greatest adventure I've had since my first week in Rexburg.

The week also included horse-back riding, two Thanksgiving dinners, second place in a pool tournament, a trip up to the cabin (complete with multiple elk sightings), several rounds of Farkle, and even some Black Friday shopping! Oh my heavens, it was some good times.

Nearer the beginning of the semester, when I thought I'd be coming home during Thanksgiving break, I was thinking that I wouldn't be doing any celebrating of Thanksgiving, Canadian or American, this year. Lucky me, though, I've ended up getting to eat 3 different Thanksgiving dinners.

And now it's less than three weeks before I get to come home!
Be excited.
I am.

Children Will Listen Pt 2

While engaged in a discussion in English class about the difference between tolerance and indifference:

"I don't care about child labour in India. I just want my three dollar t-shirt!"

Hear, hear, Brother Dayley. Hear, hear.

That Little Bit of Good

You know what I really enjoy? I really enjoy the weekly devotionals here at BYU-Idaho. They are always so uplifting and often quite entertaining to boot. Of course, the speakers are fantastic, but, as is usual, there are some other aspects of devotional that deserve a little recognition, as well.

• Similar to the Salt Lake Conference Centre, there are two projection screens on either side of the pulpit and stand that display a countdown to the start of devotional. The organists playing the prelude music somehow always manages to time the end of the hymn exactly with the 00:00 on the countdown. I don't know how they do it! I'm impressed.
• I usually sit about 2/3 of the way back on the floor level, so I can see a lot of the other students sitting in front of me. I love when a speaker says something particularly insightful and you can watch everybody's heads go down all at the same time, trying to write down what was said in their notebooks. You can always tell what the next addition to all the apartments' quote walls will be.
• As the congregation, we get the words to each hymns projected onto the screens. The chorister, however, is expected each week to have all the verses memorized and look super peppy as they conduct the songs. Kudos to them for doing it. It always makes me laugh, though, when the chorister forgets the words and is left just smiling awkwardly on the big screen.
• You can always count on that one guy to laugh so much louder and so much longer than everyone else. Which then gets the rest of us all going again. It's a hoot.

Really, I love devo!

Three Short Days to Have a Lifetime of Fun

College road trip #2: Epic.

It was SO fantastic to see so many good friends again - my goodness, how I've missed you all! - and have such a fun filled weekend. I'm super exhausted, but I could not have hoped for any better of a trip!
Austen, Brock, and Dallin showed up at my apartment on Friday around 2 and immediately the fun ensued. Seriously, these guys are too funny. After singing and joking in the car for 4 hours, we arrived in Provo and were greeted by a very exuberant and emotional Courtney. With her and her friends, we all stayed up until around one...the following night - hooray for all-nighters! We had fun eating at two different places, walking around temple grounds, deciding not to go bowling twice and finally sitting outside Courtney's apartment for 2 hours talking. The apartment lobby hours were over, so we stuck it out in the semi-cold (actually, it was surprisingly warm) until 5 am when we changed and made our way to the temple for an early morning session - so great! Especially when followed by a trip to Krispy Kreme.
If for no other reason, this trip was a success because I was able to check off an item from my bucket list - on Saturday afternoon, we made the trek up to the Y on the mountain! And when I say trek, I mean it; we decided to skip the trail and hike straight up the mountain. At least it can be claimed as an adventure!
Saturday night brought my first ever American football game. Courtney indicated that there had been better ones, but I definitely enjoyed the marching band, cheerleaders, and excitement of it all. And BYU has a school song - why aren't we that cool?
We attended church as well as choir practice with Courtney on Sunday and then came home to eat (super recipe, Courtney!), play Monopoly, and then eat again with another guy's apartment. It was awesome to meet all of the other BYU students down there; they were definitely a lot of fun. In fact, we all bonded so much that Brock, Austen, Dallin, and I made some very special friends - Tia, Kelley, Beth, and Michael were some great two-hour significant others (and good sports, too).
Another 4 hour drive home, dropping off the guys at a friend's apartment, a 4 hour sleep before going to my psychology class, and we were off again to Idaho Falls to experience some all-you-can-eat steak at Stockman's. Afterwards, the guys dropped me off at home and started in on the 14 hour drive home.

There were just too many fun times this past weekend including belting songs in the car, piggy-back rides, and excessive chivalry! Thanks so much, guys, for making the trip down; it really was too much fun!
Now, if I can just get back to a normal sleeping schedule, I will be a very happy girl!

There's Been a Change In Me

When I was in Grade 9, I took a career aptitude test. One of the top suggestions was 'Social Worker', which I found immediately appealing. Soon afterwards, I decided I wanted to study psychology with an emphasis in child and youth counseling and stuck with that for basically all of high school. It was nice just to feel confident and secure in my future by having a career already picked out, plus psychology is just way interesting, am I right?
So, in my application to BYU-Idaho, I declared psychology as my intended major.

By the third day of classes, I knew that I no longer had the desire to make a profession out of psychology, which was actually a little frightening, because I haven't really even considered any other options for some time. I spent the next weeks dwelling somewhat on what I did want to do. It wasn't until earlier this month, upon seeing that class registration for next semester begins on the 7th, that I realized I needed to step up my game.

There were (and are) a few areas and classes that I find especially compelling - English, linguistics, German, business and marketing, even psychology still - but I just couldn't see myself doing any of those things as a career, either for reasons of enjoyment or practicality. I took another career aptitude test from the Academic Discovery Centre, which was totally unhelpful; I have no desire to be a zoologist, horticulturist, or a meteorologist. And it didn't help that results from my interests, abilities, and values inventories did not coincide at all. ('Farmer' was on there, though. At least they got one thing right.)

I forced myself to realize that, aside from Carly's Custom Creations, what I really want to do with the rest of my life is be with kids and be able to put all my skills to use, especially the creative ones. So, in a moment of total clarity, I went and switched my intended major to Elementary Education.

Is it bad that this was one of the more impulsive decisions of my life?
I mean, it wasn't even one of the suggestion from the aptitude test!

Everyone Hail to the Pumpkin Song

I was asked if the "Momos" down here go hardcore for Halloween. Unfortunately, I have to answer no, not really. But it was still a lot of fun getting in the holiday spirit!

We watched far too many Halloween movies and television shows including The Nightmare Before Christmas, Hocus Pocus, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and a fantastic vampire-themed episode of Psych.
Wednesday brought my first ever trip to Deseret Industries to pick out a Halloween costume. Glad to say it was a success. And nice to be back in the familiarity of a second-hand store.
The BYU-Idaho Symphony Orchestra put on an Indiana Jones-themed Halloween concert to which I went on Friday night. Obviously, the music was great, but they also had semi-comedic scenes interspersed throughout that added up to a cheesy, heart-warming plot, complete with poor acting and even poorer jokes, which made it all the more entertaining.
In fact, it was so good, I went on Saturday, too.
Halloween treats were exchanged with visiting teachers and teachees (I know, I'm a visiting teacher. It's really cool).
I loved seeing the few people on campus dressed up (of which I was not one). There weren't many, but I appreciate the enthusiasm.
Our ward had a Halloween party on Monday night. 'Twas a lot of fun making haunted gingerbread houses, though ours was far from structurally sound. But hey, candy is candy, and we had a ton of chocolate icing left over that I was more than willing to clean up. (Best part: There was a lot of left over spaghetti from the dinner which hey tried to force upon others, so I have food for a week!)

Only picture I have of Halloween (wish it was better). I was dressed up as Boo from
Monsters Inc. My roommates Jessica and Brianne were dressed as cowgirls.

Some of our FHE brother came over directly after the ward party to trick or treat. I was happy that I still had candy left to give them. Unfortunately, that meant that I was entirely out when a group of little kids came by. I felt like a failure. But really, what parents bring their kids to college housing expecting them to have candy? (especially when it's against city law for us to go trick-or-treating to their homes.)

Too much fun.

And now that it's all over. I get to start watching all the Christmas specials on tv! So excited.

Title of Show

Have I ever told you how much I hate titles? Cause I do.
I don't like writing them and I don't like analyzing their meaning or hypothesizing what the theme of the poem will be from reading those few short words. Ya know, I wouldn't mind writing essays and papers half so much if they didn't make you put a darned title at the top. And most teachers will insist that it be more than "Reaction Paper #2", but I just can't be creative under pressure like that - so I tend to just follow a similar pattern each time which is [One Word Theme: Descriptive Phrase]. All essays in high school followed this pattern, producing such gems as "Honour: Restoring Certainty in Relationships" and "Tolerance: Learning to Appreciate Opposing Views". I tried to get creative this year for a paper I wrote and came up with "A Contemplation in Regurgitation" - it kind of has a nice ring, right?

Anyways, what I'm getting to (whilst trying to tie it into school so that I can post it on my college blog) is that you should all be really appreciative of the awesome titles of my blog posts. Cause they're cool. And they take me a really long time to think of and/or search for.

And yes, Julie, the last one was from Altar Boyz.

Church Rulez

We had our Stake Conference this past weekend, which was thoroughly enjoyable; we've got a lot of good stake members who have a lot of wise things to say. For that matter, I love our weekly devotionals, as well. As much as I appreciate their pearls of wisdom, though, it's these gems from the pulpit that I want to draw attention to:

• "We have lots of cookies for you, cause we want to feed you spiritually, then we want to feed you physically. Then we want you to flirt." (Everybody left promptly after taking their cookies - I think the fun is taken out of it once it becomes a stake assignment.)
• Our Stake President, President Barron, once wielded a legit sword from the pulpit. And he talks like a stereotypical Californian surfer. It makes his talks even more entertaining to listen to. (To use a Bonnie Doon Stake term, he is definitely the one with the "pizazz".)
• "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" - Harry Potter is just so spiri'chal.
• In the introduction to his talk, a young man pulled out a ring box and said he wanted to take this opportunity to do something big and "she knows who she is". It was just a joke, but we were all still a little tense. Oh, YSA wards.
• Someone referred to us as "solid [illegitimate children] of the Lord". (I know, I'm making this blog little more PG here.) We can't figure out what he meant by it, but we're all darned sure that's what we heard.
• President Barron wanted to do an anonymous Q and A in stake conference, so he gave us all his cell number so that we could text him questions.
• Elaine S. Dalton, as part of an object lesson, peeled an actual potato from the pulpit at devotional.

And some people think church is boring.

Children Will Listen*

I love psychology.
From Introduction to Psychology - Ninth Edition, Chapter 6, under 'Social Learning':

"Why do we imitate? Other people's behavior often provides information. Did you ever have this experience? You tell your parents you want to do something because "everyone else" is doing it. They scream, "If everyone else were jumping off a cliff, would you do it, too?" Well, let's think about it. If literally everyone were jumping off a cliff, maybe they have a reason! Maybe you're in great danger where you are, and it would be safer to jump. Maybe if you jump, you won't fall very far, and you'll land on something soft. If everyone is doing it, you should at least consider the possibility that they know something you don't."

Thank you James W. Kalat!

*Before anyone asks, it's from Into the Woods.

As I Recall It Ended Much Too Soon - Oh What a Week!

Oh my heavens, this was the probably the best week here, thus far. So let me touch on, if I may (and I may, because it's my blog, dang-nab-it), some of the highlights of the week.

I was able to get all the troubles with my bank account resolved. I won't go into the boring details, but it was quite a burden off my shoulders to know that I still had funds available to me.

I woke up Wednesday morning to a cute, encouraging note in my bathroom drawer from my roommate. (Thanks, Allisyn!) Later that night, I went with her to another apartment lounge to watch the season premier of Psych. I'd never seen the show before, but I found it quite enjoyable and definitely enjoyed the company.

On Thursday, I went on a date to the 10-pin bowling alley in the MC building. I have only ever been 10-pin bowling once before, but I think I like it better. It's easier to hold the balls with holes in my short, chubby fingers.

Friday lunch brought another lunch date with a young man in my ward. Free (for me, anyways) food is always welcome!

Brianne's birthday was on Friday, so we went out as an apartment to celebrate at Neilson's Frozen Custard for dinner. We don't often do a ton all together, so it was exciting to be able to spend time with all of them.

I went to a haunted straw maze on Friday night. It was super well done and too much fun. Three of us got separated from the rest of the group and we were in there for a good 40 minutes longer than everybody else. Eventually the dressed up workers had seen us wandering back and forth so many times that they just broke character and told us which way we needed to go. It was fantastic.

On Saturday, as an apartment, we had our own Super Saturday. I love crafting! We all bought wood letters corresponding to the first letters of our names which we then painted and decorated and hung on our living room wall. Later, we watched The Swan Princess and made Bead Pets. (That was nostalgic. I remember Julie teaching me as a little girl how to make the bead geckos.)

For a few of her music classes, Camille had to go to the Paul Jacobs organ concert and asked if I wanted to go with her. To be honest, I was expecting to be a little bored, but I was pleasantly surprised. This guy was really talented and there were times when, had I not been watching him myself, you could not have convinced me that all that music was coming from a single musician on a single instrument. Very enjoyable.
On a side note, every time I talk to Camille, I am just more and more surprised at how alike we are and how well we get along. It's really very lucky. She keeps me sane, sometimes.

It was also very good to skype with Mom and Courtney this week. Thinking I'd be getting my phone fixed sooner rather than later, I kept putting it off (I get so frustrated with the awful internet connection here, and I can actually phone them), but it was so nice to hear from them both again.

So, I definitely enjoyed this week. Here's hoping we can make it a 2 week streak!

My Pulse is Rushing, My Head is Reeling

For the most part, there is a wonderful Spirit here on campus that fills me with peace.
There have been moments, though, that have made my heart race in the past month.

• Praying in Class - Oh my heavens. I volunteered to give the opening prayer in my English class and, upon sitting down, my heart was pounding. I've been part of the church for over 18 years - shouldn't I be used to public prayer by now?
• Bikes on Campus - There are sign all over stating that "bike speed is walking speed". I don't know if cyclists are going a tad fast or if I have sorely underestimated the ability of speed walkers today. Either way, it has taken great control on my part to maintain any kind of movement when they whiz past me; I fear for my well-being just a little.
• Speaking in Class - Again, this shouldn't be a big deal, but it takes all my reserves of strength to get my blood pressure back to normal after being called on to speak.
• The Bearded Repairman - The first time he had to come to our apartment, I was alone in the house and he'd come to fix a sink that I had no idea there was a problem with. I was sure it was all just a ruse to catch unsuspecting, defenseless females unawares - I mean, no one has facial hair at BYU-I, so he's got to be sketchy, right? - and I was planning my escape route when he left just as peaceably as he'd come.
  
• Leading the Music in Church - I got a new calling. And it's the same one that I had in Highlands. For some reason, though, I had some sort of stage fright about it, today, being so flustered I even ended the hymn and sat down before completing the fourth verse of The Spirit of God.
• The Fire Alarm During Relief Society - Okay, really only the initial noise was frightening, because I happened to be sitting right underneath the fire bell. But the alarm was actually semi-legit; we were all told to go home before the third block had even started.

Just some points of mild note - gotta love the moments of excitement that intersperse all the calm of homework and studying!

I Galloped Through the Snow in Eleven Below...

I'm just saying.